QuakeIndex

Earthquake · reviewed by a seismologist

M 3.4md

55 km SSW of Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico

· 127 km deep · released about 2 tons of TNT

Felt it? Tell USGS Check my area
10 km30 km60 km120 km N Santa Isabel Municipio 55 kmJuana Díaz Municipio 58 kmPonce Municipio 59 kmSalinas Municipio 62 kmPeñuelas Municipio 64 kmGuayanilla Municipio 65 kmGuánica Municipio 66 kmGuayama Municipio 69 kmCoamo Municipio 72 km
Distance rings around the epicentre, with the nearest towns at their true direction and later quakes as coloured dots. Not a shaking map — see the USGS ShakeMap for that.
When
Magnitude
M 3.4 (md)
Depth
127 km below the surface
Felt
no reports yet
Nearest
Santa Isabel Municipio, 55 km NNE
Status
Reviewed by a seismologist

USGS · last changed by USGS · we first saw it 2016 days ago

This was a small earthquake. Shaking like this is often felt indoors nearby and very rarely causes damage.

How big was it?

This earthquake released about 2 tons of TNT. Magnitude is logarithmic: each whole step up releases about 32 times more energy, so a magnitude 4.4 would have released about 32 times as much.

  1. Northridge, California 1994 M 6.7 86,000× the energy of this one
  2. Mineral, Virginia 2011 M 5.8 3,800× the energy of this one
  3. Magna, Utah 2020 M 5.7 2,700× the energy of this one
  4. This earthquake M 3.4 about 2 tons of TNT
  5. Around the size people start to feel M 3.0 this one released 4.1× more

Energy from the Gutenberg–Richter relation (log10E = 1.5M + 4.8), rounded to two figures; bar length is magnitude, which is already a logarithm of energy. Magnitudes of past earthquakes from the USGS catalogue.

Where

Epicentre 17.4800, -66.5341. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Nearby places

PlaceDistanceDirection
Santa Isabel Municipio, PR 55 km (34 mi) SSW of here earthquakes near Santa Isabel Municipio
Juana Díaz Municipio, PR 58 km (36 mi) S of here earthquakes near Juana Díaz Municipio
Ponce Municipio, PR 59 km (36 mi) S of here earthquakes near Ponce Municipio
Salinas Municipio, PR 62 km (38 mi) SSW of here earthquakes near Salinas Municipio
Peñuelas Municipio, PR 64 km (40 mi) SSE of here earthquakes near Peñuelas Municipio
Guayanilla Municipio, PR 65 km (40 mi) SSE of here earthquakes near Guayanilla Municipio

Places and coordinates from the US Census Bureau Gazetteer (2024). Distances are from the epicentre.

Aftershocks so far

2 earthquakes have been recorded within 50 km since this one.

  1. 2.8 19 km SSE of Guánica, Puerto Rico
  2. 3.0 18 km SSE of Guánica, Puerto Rico

Counted from the QuakeIndex database, which ingests the USGS feed every 30 seconds · as of . QuakeIndex does not forecast aftershocks. When USGS issues an operational aftershock forecast it appears on the USGS event page.

For this area

The largest earthquake within 50 km in our catalogue was M 5.6 on 2020-01-07 — it released about 1,900 times the energy of this one.

From the QuakeIndex catalogue, built from the USGS FDSN event service.

On USGS

QuakeIndex does not issue warnings. For earthquake early warning see ShakeAlert.